As NPR's Larry Abramson said today on Morning Edition, "Irene did not turn out to be the storm of the century" and many beach towns "were stunned by how lucky they were."

But Irene also led to more than 20 deaths, cut the power to more than 5 million homes and businesses (many are still without electricity), forced the cancellation of about 11,000 flights and caused an estimated $7 billion in damages, according to the consulting firm Kinetic Analysis Corp.

Among the places where it's going to be days, or longer, before things are back to normal: Vermont. Though well inland, Irene's heavy rains caused extensive flooding across the state. On Morning Edition, Vermont Public Radio's Ross Sneyd said "when the storm came to Vermont and settled over the mountains, it just dropped buckets and buckets of rain" — 4 to 7 inches in just a few hours.